How the Seed Green came to Omaha.

In the 1970s, the CLAAS brand was largely unknown in the US. The LEXION combine harvester was the first machine to make a name for itself in the States, but not in the green and white finish. That’s because the company had to take a roundabout route through numerous partnerships to break into the highly competitive market.

09/10/2024

Matthew Koch had never heard of the name CLAAS when he applied to work for the company in Omaha in 1999. “At that time, CLAAS had formed a joint venture with Caterpillar, and that was the name that attracted me.” The 54-year-old Production Director at the Omaha factory smiles with satisfaction because, unlike then, nowadays, the CLAAS brand means something in North America, mainly thanks to him. He grins when he remembers his early days with the company: “Here in the US, the farmers just called us the ’LEXION guys.' Although nobody was familiar with the CLAAS brand, they certainly knew about the product—but that’s all changed now!“

Omaha is the largest city in the Midwest state of Nebraska. The landscape is impressive—huge fields, one after another, stretching for hundreds of miles, interspersed with small towns and farms. Anyone driving a pick-up along the seemingly endless roads can see at once why Nebraska is known as “The Breadbasket”—more than 90% of the land here is used for agriculture, making Nebraska one of the most important producers of agricultural products in the US.

The entrance area of the CLAAS factory in Omaha is surrounded by vast floor-to-ceiling windows, creating a friendly, welcoming impression for visitors entering for the first time. In addition to the 183,000 square feet (7,000 m²) production building, there is also a prototype workshop for development, the Quality Management department, a test track, and offices. CLAAS Omaha builds more than 600 LEXION 6000, 7000, and 8000 machines here every year. "We still haven't utilized the full production capacity," explains Matthew Koch. Many more ambitious goals are still to happen, as he sees it. Omaha is a success story that he and his colleagues at the site have yet to finish writing.

“We want to continue growing in the US”

Matthias Ristow, Managing Director of Business Administration, explains in an interview what’s so special about the factory in Omaha and how German and American cultures differ.

New machines for huge fields.

CLAAS can trace its history in the US back more than 50 years, although the company made its debut on the US market under different names. The first of these was Ford. In 1965, CLAAS signed a partnership agreement with the American company; combined harvesters supplied by Harsewinkel were exported to the US with a blue-and-white finish. The agreement expired in the 1980s, so in 1989, CLAAS joined forces with Massey Ferguson, and the combine harvesters were painted red and sold under another name. Blue-and-white or red, the machines proved popular because they were exactly what the farmers desperately needed, explains Matthew Koch.

The US is a vast country stretching over several climate zones. The farms and the produce they grow are just as varied as the country itself. While large quantities of rice are grown in California and the southeast, the Midwest is known as the corn and soybean belt. Wheat is grown mainly in the middle, as well as in Canada, along with other types of grain.

Corn is a good example of how arable farming in the US differs from that in Germany. The US land area is much bigger, but so is the planting density for corn—around twice as many plants grow on the same area of land. Many are genetically modified and yield more cobs with more kernels per cob.

As a result, there is a huge demand for high-performance machines—especially combine harvesters— that can cope with these yields, explains Matthew Koch. "Under excellent conditions, you can get yields of up to 27 t per 2.47 acres (1 hectare). Cultivation methods in the USA are world-class. Other major growing regions such as Europe or Ukraine achieve only a quarter of that, about 7 t per 2.47 acres (1 hectare)."

Insights from our colleagues

01 / 03

“CLAAS may sometimes be seen as an outsider in North America, but it is always viewed as THE technological leader.”

– Kevin Wilkening, design engineer

Learning from American farmers.

American agriculture needs slightly modified, high-performance machines. And CLAAS itself is benefitting enormously from its involvement in meeting these market demands, says Matthew Koch. “We get plenty of important feedback and suggestions for improvement from the farmers here. As a result, the combine harvesters are being continually improved. And many of the modifications we make for the American market will eventually make their way into German production.”

CLAAS Omaha takes feedback very seriously and is very responsive in incorporating those improvements into our machines to make them available in time for the next season. In the months after harvesting, it’s all systems go in the engineering department. The knowledge gained from countless discussions with customers flows directly into new innovations, which then roll off the assembly line the following year.

Our partnerships with local suppliers make this dynamic rate of change possible. Although 60% of parts come from other international sites, 40% are produced in close proximity to Omaha. “The development work is a continuous cycle,” says Matthew Koch. “Listening to customers, improving the product, and then repeating the process.”

Reciprocal visits.

It wasn’t the combine harvesters, but forage harvesters that planted the CLAAS name in the minds of farmers in the 1980s. “The JAGUAR arrived on the scene in America and was so efficient that you would have had to be crazy to settle on a different make,” explains Matthew Koch. And just like that, CLAAS became a household name almost overnight.

Having its own network of dealerships was a great advantage. Helmut Claas personally ensured that he established his own dealers and partnerships with independent sales partners, initially to bring his balers to market. The JAGUAR was also sold through this dealership network.

The color of the combine harvesters was to change on a number of occasions over the years. First, they were blue and white, then red, and when CLAAS formed a joint venture with Caterpillar in the 1990s, they became yellow. In fact, this move was the first to make Matthew Koch aware of the German company. Caterpillar had developed a tractor with crawler tracks but no harvesting machines. The deal was that Caterpillar would export crawler tractors in CLAAS colors to Europe, and CLAAS, in turn, would take charge of producing the LEXION combine harvester for North America. The factory in Omaha was built for this purpose. Although Caterpillar stopped manufacturing agricultural machinery in 2000, the LEXION initially retained its yellow color. It wasn’t until 2019 that it finally sported Seed Green.

By farmers for farmers.

There’s still plenty of room to grow in Omaha. “We have more than 123 acres of land we can build on, and currently, we’re only using a very small portion of it”, says Matthew Koch. “So nothing is standing in the way of CLAAS of America’s development. We have plenty of space for new product lines, and maybe even for manufacturing—including blanking and painting.”

When asked to describe in one sentence what drives him, the production manager doesn’t waste any time thinking about it. As the son of farmers, his motivation has much to do with his roots in this region and his childhood on the farm. “Producing high-quality machines to help the people I grew up with makes me really happy.”

Impressions from Omaha

Video Thumbnail CLAAS | Omaha. Many Places. One Passion. DE (Thumbnail)

Five facts about Omaha.

1.

Omaha is a city with around 500,000 inhabitants. It is the commercial center of Nebraska, located in the Midwest.

2.

During the pioneer period and the westward migration, Omaha was the site of the first railroad crossing over the Missouri River. The city was founded in 1854 and named after the Omaha native American tribe, which had sold much of its land to the state.

3.

One of the city’s most famous sons is Warren Buffet, cited by Forbes as the fifth richest person in the world. He is also known as the ’Oracle of Omaha’ on account of his success as an investor. The chair of the Berkshire Hathaway holding company still lives in the city.

4.

Nebraska is in the middle of the Great Plains and has been one of the primary agricultural regions in the US since the arrival of the first European settlers. Today, the prairies are mostly used to grow corn and soybeans.

5.

Nebraska is known in the US as the “Beef State.” This is because beef production is the number one industry in the region, where cattle outnumber people four to one. Note to meat eaters—the “Reuben sandwich” and, perhaps less unsurprisingly, the “Omaha Steak” originated in Omaha!

CLAAS Omaha in pictures

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The CLAAS production plant in Omaha has 160 acres of space (approximately five and a half acres of which are under roof) and more than 150 employees.